


Out of It

by sabinelagrande



Category: Stargate: Atlantis
Genre: Community: john_farr, John Farr, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-14
Updated: 2009-03-14
Packaged: 2017-10-06 14:22:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabinelagrande/pseuds/sabinelagrande
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At some point Rodney realizes he hasn't had sex in over a year.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out of It

**Author's Note:**

> This fic falls into the John Farr 'verse at some point (probably a long time?) after Skin Hunger.

Rodney's had the day marked- a big red circle on his calendar, three alarms on his PDA- for months and months. He can't decide what to call it in his head; "The Day It Stops" is a favorite, along with "Daedalus Day" and "Good Friday."

It isn't until he's already been beamed aboard and is stowing his stuff under his bunk that he realizes his Cycle is starting, and wow, it's the first time he's ever managed to forget. When John walks into the quarters they're sharing, Rodney just sort of lunges at him. John, Cycling himself, doesn't even look surprised; all he says is "You couldn't hold it for six hours?" and then all bets are off.

He wakes up, cramped up between John and the wall, a couple hours later. He manages to unfold himself, somehow, and goes off to use the head. When he comes back, John has rolled over, huddled up a little. He starts to climb back into bed; his hand brushes against John's stomach-

And he doesn't feel anything.

It freaks him out so badly he goes back to his own bed, tossing and turning until he hears the morning report over the comm.

John doesn't bring it up, acting like nothing at all is amiss. In fact, he seems totally different; it takes Rodney a week to realize that John is actually _relaxed_, which is a word he'd never thought he'd use in the same sentence as John's name, unless they were connected by "is really, really not ever" or something very similar.

He stops worrying about it when they get to Atlantis, because he simply hasn't got the time- he's got to yell at Zelenka and avoid Carter and rearrange the labs and then there are these guys who dress like extras from a Rob Zombie video and suck the life out of you and they find a ZPM and John dies but gets better and Rodney makes friends with a whale and they accidentally kind of help Ladon Radim perform a coup and Rodney practices shooting every day for a month but he still can't hit the broad side of a barn and-

At some point Rodney realizes he hasn't had sex in over a year.

Huh.

Weirder still, he realizes that he actually wants to do it again, which is pretty much the shock of the century. He thinks it should be easy for him to find someone; by his count, he's had sex with two-thirds of the military contingent. Thankfully, that figure is much lower for the science division, many of whom started their Stargate careers on Atlantis; though Carter still sometimes has trouble looking him in the eye.

But Lorne probably would, given the way he blushes every time Rodney looks at him, finding little excuses to sit near him or give him extra dessert. There's that gate tech, too, Campbell, who he really wouldn't mind having again; he was always very polite, which is the one stereotype about Canadians that Rodney has no problem with. And maybe Simpson- they've never fucked, but she goes on the list for being blonde and hot but _not_ being Carter.

The thing is, though, that he's never actually had sex without being or having a Receptor. He's aware that some people do it when they're not Cycling- he's already walked in on Drs. Kusanagi and Evans raucously proving that all over one of the lab tables- but he can't even conceptualize what it would be like. It's something he only knows about from porn, as kinky and remote as it can possibly be.

He can't fathom the fact that it's just unheard of to Cycle in the Pegasus Galaxy, that these people have persisted for tens of thousands of years without ever being compelled to mate. He tries to ask Teyla about it, thinking she might be sympathetic; but apparently the Athosians just don't talk about sex. It kind of blows Rodney's mind- especially because she's like six months pregnant, and who the hell does she think she's fooling?

Talking to Ronon doesn't go much better.

"What's it like, having sex?" Rodney asks, poking at his mashed tavi root with his fork and trying to sound nonchalant.

"How would I know?" Ronon responds, looking vaguely uncomfortable, and that's the end of that.

Rodney finds himself thinking about it all the time now, in a way that he never did before; he was always too busy having sex to stop and think about it. For all the ways that sex has complicated his life, it's never been particularly complicated in and of itself.

Not for the first time, Rodney thinks that the gods must love situational irony.

It isn't just random sex that he seems to want though; eventually it gets to the point that he's thinking about _John_, pretty much to the exclusion of anyone else, and Rodney doesn't know what to make of that.

He thinks maybe it's because John shows so much more skin here; Rodney just misses an entire mission briefing the first time John wears a short-sleeved shirt, staring at his arms as he rests them against the table. He can't stop thinking about what it might be like to trail his fingers along the inside of John's elbow, lay him down and slowly map every bit of him, calm and gentle, without any hurry at all.

And he really couldn't have picked a worse target. Things are so much looser here- most people greet each other with high-fives or Satedan-style handshakes or that peculiar Athosian forehead thing- but John is still just as touch-phobic as he was on Earth. The only person he ever seems to touch is Teyla, and Rodney feels an ugly, unwelcome flare of jealousy every time he does.

And it's ridiculous, because he and John have already fucked six ways from Sunday. They've done _everything_ on Rodney's checklist of stuff two guys can do together, which runs to four pages with footnotes. It makes him feel oddly ungrateful, for some reason, like all those times were nothing at all, when he knows for a fact that John still counts every single one of them.

Rodney finally decides that he just can't budget any more time for thinking about this; in the time he's already spent worrying and pondering, they probably could have run through the list again. And so, he goes to John's room after dinner one night; John is smiling when he opens the door for Rodney, telling Rodney to come in, sit down, take a load off.

Rodney stands awkwardly by the door instead, very much needing an escape route in case this doesn't go well. "Um," he starts. "I think maybe we should have sex," he says, all in a rush, before he can think better of it.

For the briefest, unguarded second, he sees something spark in John's eyes, but it passes so quickly that Rodney wonders if he's imagined it. John says something that sounds like, "Fucking pseudo," under his breath, before straightening and clearing his throat.

"You need to go see Carson," he tells Rodney. "It happens to everybody eventually." The tone in his voice clearly says _everybody but me_.

Rodney can't do more than blink at him for a minute, but then it clicks. "You think I think I'm Cycling?" he says, his voice very nearly drifting up into an indignant squawk. "Believe me, Colonel, I would definitely know."

John holds his hands up, a gesture of capitulation. "It's nothing to be ashamed of."

"Oh, saints in a speedboat," Rodney swears, holding the bridge of his nose so that his head doesn't explode from the sheer force of his annoyance. "Look, let me say this so clearly that even an American can understand it," he snaps, drawing a frown from John. "I am asking you if you would like, at some point in the near future, to have consensual sex with me, _because_ neither of us is Cycling."

John's eyes go wide; he looks almost terrified. "I haven't- I mean, I don't- I'm not like-" he stammers, and Rodney knows he must be really thrown, because he never stammers. "Rodney, I can't give you what you want."

Rodney knows then that John has gotten this completely backwards, that he has no idea what Rodney's asking for. A wave of nausea hits him at the thought that John thinks he wants John to use him again, chased by a low pang when he realizes that maybe that's all John assumes Rodney is capable of enjoying.

Rodney is suddenly incandescent with anger; he stuffs his hands into his pockets to keep himself from punching John right in the face. "Twelve years," he grits out from between clenched teeth. "Twelve fucking _years_ my career got put on hold so I could be the live-in fuck toy of the entire SGC." He takes a sadistic kind of satisfaction at the way John flinches at his words. "Don't you _dare_ even try to pretend you know what I want."

He wants to storm out, but he's so fucking pissed off that he can't even walk. He just slumps down into John's desk chair instead and stares at the floor, wondering if it'll burst into flames if he glares at it long enough.

When he finally looks up again, John is holding out a hand. He almost slaps it away, but John looks so nervous that he can't bring himself to. "I don't think we've been properly introduced," he says, his voice quavering a little, melting Rodney's anger in an instant. "Hi. I'm John Sheppard."

"Doctor Rodney McKay," he replies, taking John's hand in his own and shaking it, the way he's seen Ronon do. "Pleased to meet you."

A grin breaks out on John's face, running upwards until it lights his eyes, and Rodney thinks it might just be the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. "So," he drawls. "Do you come here often?"


End file.
